The deal will see the top two football tiers renamed the StarTimes Uganda Premier League and StarTimes Big League respectively and run for 10 years and if all goes as hoped, a lot of money will trickle down to the clubs in those divisions.

Yet the question is how much? Local media left with no answers from the briefing that announced the agreement yesterday at Hotel Africana, with FUFA president Moses Magogo calling for time before the revelations are made.

Magogo said, “Allow us to sit down as the stakeholders and determine the breakdown then we shall announce the details. The key thing is that money is in the basket”.

Magogo added that he does not expect any trouble in those discussions because FUFA and the clubs have enjoyed a transparent financial relationship with past deals like the just-concluded one with Azam TV.

Yet if the new partnership with StarTimes is to be regarded as “historic”, for many the starting point will be the amount of money hitting club accounts every season. Under the Azam deal, Premier League clubs received around sh56m a season besides prize money while under the SuperSport era, at least for the short time it continued, clubs received sh37.5m a season.

The StarTimes deal is long and it remains to be seen if, given the unpredictable past of such partnerships, it will run its course. Yet because of its long duration, it is very unlikely club fortunes will actually improve.

Consider the Azam deal for instance, it was worth more than half the StarTimes figure for just over a third the length. Is it the reason why the actual figure going to the clubs was not disclosed?